How to survive at work

Common Mistake: Waiting until it’s too late

The Inside Track: Prevention is quicker and cheaper

Data recovery is expensive and slow, so back up those files, says Alecia Oliver, manager of Dial a Nerd in Hatfield, Pretoria. There are several options. Flash drives contain up to 32 gigabytes of data and are small enough to fit inside your purse. “The downside is that they’re so small they can easily get lost,” Oliver says. Backing up can also be done online by paying for storage on an FTP site. You’ll be given a personal address, which you can access at any time. “Since uncapped ADSL is becoming cheaper, this is an excellent solution,” says Oliver. She recommends www.afrihost.com, which offers encrypted, local online back-up from R39 per month. External hard drives, which plug into a USB port on your computer, also work well and start at about R800.